


Find Your Light Again

by deskclutter



Category: Princess Tutu
Genre: 5 Things, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-27 14:17:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set post-canon, sometime in a nebulous future when Fakir writes Ahiru back into a girl again. Five (-ish) times Ahiru finds it difficult to human.</p><p>Written for Fakiru Week 2013: Mistake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Find Your Light Again

I.  
  
Just like every morning, Ahiru woke up to the sound of the town clock chiming. Her eyes all bleary, she swayed to her feet and dragged herself past the study and the kitchen until she reached the door which opened to the road that led to the pier and the lake.  
  
As she was about to step gracefully into the water for her usual morning paddle and gossip, something strange caught her eye. It had pale skin, long red hair, it wore a pale blue nightgown, and it was her reflection.  
  
The realisation startled her so badly that she overbalanced and splashed into the water.  
  
“You turned the doorknob,” Fakir recounted later, when he dropped a towel on her head. “You turned  _two_  doorknobs to get out of your room and out of the house. You had to swing your  _legs_  down to get out of the bed. How did you not realise you were a girl again?”  
  
“I only forgot for a little while!!” said Ahiru, scrubbing at her head, and oh, it was nice to have a girl’s mouth again. “I’ll get used to it.” She put down the towel and spread her hands open, just to have a look. Holding them up for Fakir to see, she said, “I’m already used to these, right?”  
  
Fakir liked to think that he knew how to hide his smile around her but he was actually kind of sort of terrible at it? It was in the corners of his mouth all the time, twitching involuntarily. Ahiru didn’t tell him; she liked to see him smile even if it was half-hidden and he didn’t know she was looking.  
  
“Take your time,” he muttered.  
  
  
(“Here,” said Fakir, holding his closed fist out. He was staring firmly at the door so he wouldn’t have to meet her eyes, which was fine, quarrelling over which of them should have been more prepared for her to be naked had been a pretty embarrassing fight to start things with.  
  
She held out her palms and waited for him to glance quickly back at her and then away before he dropped a gold chain into her hands. “It’s how I knew it had worked this time,” he explained. “It appeared around the time when you started shouting."  
  
Ahiru held the chain up between her thumb and finger. There was a pendant strung along it, a little yellow charm in the shape of a crown. “It's pretty... Will I turn into a duck again if I say qua—QUACK!!”  
  
“Yes,” said Fakir, promptly marching himself out of the room. “There’s water on the table,” he called out over her cries of bewilderment, and then he shut the door behind him.)  
  
  
II.  
  
Fakir was sitting at the kitchen table when she limped through the door. He had a very sarcastic look on his face, but it melted away when he realised her knee was bleeding. “You’re hurt,” he said, getting to his feet.  
  
“Ehe, it’s not that bad, Fakir,” Ahiru tried to assure him. “I stubbed my toe on a rock and that made me trip and then I scraped my knee, but it’s not that painful at all really, it was more painful when I ran into the door when Mytho needed to practice for the Fire Festival that time…!”  
  
He made her sit down as she rambled her way through a list of agonising experiences and drew her leg up so he could dab her knee with a wet cloth. “Sometimes,” he said, “it amazes me to know that you’re Princess Tutu. You need to protect your feet and stop leaving your shoes in weird places. I found them in the boat today!”  
  
“Ohhhh, no wonder I couldn’t find them,” said Ahiru. She laughed at his expression. “I’ll do better,” she promised.  
  
  
("How are you going to earn toeshoes if you can't even keep normal shoes on your feet?"  
  
"I'll get used to them, don't worry! You know, Fakir, you really remind me of Canary-mama sometimes."  
  
"What's that supposed to mean?")  
  
  
III.  
  
Then there was the day when Fakir found Ahiru sitting on the edge of the pier after a full week of tests, dejectedly swinging her bare feet over the water. “Well?” he said.  
  
“Apprentice class,” Ahiru sighed.  
  
“But they agreed to take you,” Fakir pressed.  
  
“But... apprentice class,” Ahiru stressed. “And I was practising, even when I was a duck, so I wouldn’t forget...” She sighed again. “I saw Pique and Lilie today too. They didn’t know me of course, but I know Pique’s favourite colour is green and I know that Lilie’s favourite ice cream flavour is strawberry. It would be weird, wouldn’t it, if someone knew these things about people before they were friends?”  
  
Fakir put down his bag and moved her shoes aside so he could sit next to her. She slumped against his side and, hesitant, he put a comforting arm around her and they were quiet for a while but for the lapping of the water against wood. “I don’t know Pique and Lilie very well,” he finally said. “But I do know you. After this week, everyone at Gold Crown Academy knows you, and they know that you’re weird.”  
  
“Ehh--” said Ahiru, indignant, as she sat up straight to glare at him.  
  
“You make weird noises and you talk to yourself all the time,” Fakir continued, ignoring her. “You jump into bushes and disappear at strange moments. Pique and Lilie probably already think you’re weird, because everyone already thinks you’re weird.”  
  
“Hey!” said Ahiru, smacking his shoulder.  
  
Fakir tried to dodge the blow. “But you are kind,” he said, wincing when it landed, “and everyone also knows that you like to feed the birds at school and they know that the birds love you already. Pique and Lilie were friends with you when you were weirder than you are now, remember. You are considerate and you like to learn things about your friends. Even when they don’t want you to learn things about them.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “It’s been  _weird_  to see them walk around school without you.”  
  
“Oh,” said Ahiru. “You really think I should?”  
  
“Yes,” said Fakir. “And for ballet... I didn’t say anything before because I might have been wrong and I didn’t want to discourage you, but your anatomy as a duck isn’t the same as your human body. It stands to reason that your human body needs to build up stamina again.” A small part of him curled up with guilt that he hadn’t worked out how to turn her human faster, earlier, so all her body’s strength might not have lain unused for so long.  
  
“Soooooo, my human body is out of practise?” said Ahiru. “Like, REALLY out of practise? Ahhhh, if I’d known!! But hey, Fakir,” she said, blinking up at him. “I’ve worked my way out of the apprentice class before. I can do it again, can’t I?”  
  
“Even you could do that,” Fakir agreed. “I’ll help.”  
  
She gasped. “Really? You’ll practise with me??” Her hands were clasped together in eagerness and she was alight with joy. Something twinged and floated free in Fakir's chest. “Now??”  
  
He scowled at her. “Of course not now! Haven’t you been listening? You’ve danced all day today and you need a break to build up your strength so you can dance tomorrow. You’re going to stay in the apprentice class forever if you don’t look after yourself.”  
  
“But you’ll dance with me, right, Fakir?” Ahiru said, twinkling at him.  
  
He got to his feet and pulled her up with him, the fading sunlight slanting brilliant gold across the red of her hair. “I will dance with you,” he promised. “Let’s go home. Oi,  _don’t_  forget your shoes.”  
  
  
(“Charon doesn’t remember me either, does he?” said Ahiru, as she tied a ribbon to the end of her plait.  
  
“He liked you before,” said Fakir. “He’ll like you again. Stop worrying.”  
  
“You don’t know that,” Ahiru accused, but Fakir was right.  
  
“He remembers Princess Tutu,” he whispered to her that night. “Everyone remembers Princess Tutu. You aren’t forgotten.”)  
  
  
IV.  
  
He was manning the oars when she saw something in the water, some frog or pond skater or something equally nondescript.  
  
(It was a diving beetle and he remembered when she had thrown herself across the boat a few months before to point out the dark gloss of its shell.)  
  
“Fakir, look!!” she said, jumping over to the other side of their tiny rowing boat and landing heavily against the side.  
  
(She had been the size of a duck last time. Now, she was emphatically not as small.)  
  
“Oi, wait—”  
  
The boat capsized.  
  
When he broke through the water’s surface, there was pondweed in his hair. A small white duck bobbed up to him. She had neatly bundled her clothes -- the toes of her shoes peeking out of the middle – and was towing it on a string behind her. “Qua quack,” she said, apology ringing in her voice. He was not very inclined to take it seriously because she was laughing at his hair.  
  
“ _Really_ ,” he said, glaring up at her smiling visage, but as always, something in him thrilled to see her laugh.  
  
  
(It had only worked, he explained to her, when he had told himself to remember that Ahiru was as much a duck as she was a girl, neither more nor less of either.)  
  
  
V.  
  
As they trudged home, sopping wet and laughing, Ahiru told Fakir to wait right there as she skipped off the path. She returned with a collection of red pansies between her fingers and Fakir liberated a few so he could take her hand.  
  
“Turn your head,” he said, and she closed her eyes as she did so. Tendrils of hair had escaped to feather over her cheek, and Fakir found his gaze drawn there as he tucked the flower behind her ear. He leaned forward...  
  
And just then, Ahiru opened her eyes and turned to ask if he was done. Their lips collided for the briefest of moments, just before they both leapt back like scalded cats.  
  
She had her hands clapped over her mouth. His face was already bright crimson.  
  
“MM!!!” said Ahiru, glaring.  
  
“Well-- You turned your head!!” Fakir retorted, waving his arms around. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh, let it out,” he said, and sat down hard on the ground so he could bury his head in his knees.  
  
“QUACK,” said Ahiru. Before long, there was the patter-patter of duck’s feet on stone and Ahiru butted her head against his side. “Quack qua quack,” she said to him when he freed one eye to look at her.  
  
“If you say so,” he said drily, but he reached out to pluck a stray flower off her head and he picked up her clothes. He got carefully to his feet, began to walk without looking at her, and he said, “Home.” His neck, Ahiru could see, was very red.  
  
As she trotted to catch up with him, she kept her eye on that patch of red (but it didn’t go away, not even when they reached the house).  
  
  
(“Fakir,” she said, popping her head into the study that night. “I’m going to bed.”  
  
“Mm, goodnight,” he said absently as he dipped his quill into the inkpot. He didn’t notice something was up until she was standing right beside him.  
  
“Goodnight, Fakir,” she stammered out, smiling, and she bent over to kiss his cheek, a quick peck where he had started to flush again.  
  
“Wait,” he said, catching her hand when she would have leapt back. “Just.” Shutting up, he picked up the red flower beside his sharpening knife and reached up to slip it behind her ear. “Goodnight, Ahiru.”  
  
They stared at each other for a beat, and, as one, blushed  _furiously_.  
  
“Goodnight Fakir!!” Ahiru shouted again as she tore out of the room.  
  
Fakir put his burning face in his hands and set his head down on the paper. He wrote nothing for the rest of the night.)


End file.
